


now's no time for confessions

by chainreaction



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Old Friends, Ot7 vibes, Pining, Post-Break Up, Rebound, Texting, mark and jisung are brothers, so much crying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 14:33:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16855768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainreaction/pseuds/chainreaction
Summary: If you start wondering if you might be in love, it's already too late.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> like listening and reading at the same time? check out this fic's soundtrack!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5pZfifNAOfUCm3rqj53jCs

Mark is sitting on the ground outside of the cafeteria, just far enough away that his friends inside don’t see him sitting alone. He taps his nails against his phone screen and watches as it refuses to light up, how his boyfriend hadn’t answered his last text the night before and didn’t answer his second try in the morning either. He unlocks it, just to stare at his last message and wait for some sort of reply.

 _mark lee_ _  
_     jaem, can we talk about this when you get to school? i’m just tired of fighting over text.

He swears he can hear his friends making their usual morning noise in the cafeteria before the bell, Donghyuck’s laugh that carries through the hallways and then his yelp after Renjun hits his arm to quiet him. He thinks about going in there, but he wonders if Jaemin is already sat down at the table. It’s not worth it to him to bring their relationship drama in the middle of their friends, especially when he hasn’t talked to any of them about their recent fighting. The two of them will figure this out over the weekend, just like they always do, and things will be normal again for a while.

A pair of shoes stop at his feet and he follows the attached legs up to see Jaemin standing over him. Mark smiles up, something apologetic, and pats the spot next to him for Jaemin to sit. He shakes his head back, offering Mark his hand to help him stand up.

“Hey,” Mark says, holding onto his hand for a moment after he stands up. Jaemin nods, looking down at his feet and picking at the skin on the sides of his nails.

“Mark,” he sighs after taking a glance at his watch, “I’m sorry. I wanted to wait until I saw you in person to talk to you, and I shouldn’t have ignored you like that, but I didn’t have anything else to say. I just can’t do this anymore, the way that we are now. We need to break up.”

The bell rings, like Jaemin timed it all down to the second. He reaches to put his hand on Mark’s shoulder for a moment before taking off down the hall, and Mark stands there still as all his classmates brush right past him. They have no idea, none at all, so he grabs his bag from where it slumps on the floor and throws it over the shoulder.

Mark pushes through the crowd perpendicular to their path towards the classrooms, slipping out the side door and heading for his car in the parking lot. He slams the door shut, sitting in the cold for a moment and watching his breath fog up the lenses of his glasses before he turns on the ignition and drives away. He takes comfort in knowing that he left without anyone watching him go, that maybe he can have some time to think it all over.

The tears don’t hit him until he pulls into the driveway, shutting off the engine and letting his forehead rest against the steering wheel. It didn’t feel real until now, when Mark is far enough from everyone else to really think about the way Jaemin gave him a half-smile and walked away without another word. Mark blinks his eyes to keep the tears from falling down his face, but they find their escape anyways, and he pushes the fabric of his sleeves against his eyelids to soak up the tears as they come. He sits like that for a moment, waiting until he can breathe well enough to walk into the house and lock the door behind him.

 _huang renjun_  
    hey, has anyone seen mark?

 _park jisung_  
    he’s here  
    i mean he drives me to school everyday  
    so unless he left, he’s here

 _lee jeno_ _  
_     he didn’t come sit with us like usual this morning

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     @jaemin where’s your hubby at, donghyuck wants his trig homework

 _na jaemin_ _  
_     don’t know

Mark drops himself down onto the couch, giving up on fighting any of his sobs back once he lands. He lets his brain wander back through all of it, every fight that the two of them ever had. Every time, he was the one who tried his best to make it up to Jaemin, even when it wasn’t his fault.

Jaemin always told him they would be high school sweethearts forever, even when they were old and falling apart. Now, Mark’s the one falling apart all on his own.

He drops his phone on the floor, not bothering to check his last messages. He pays no mind as he hears it buzz against the wood, he doesn’t want to see it light up over and over again like everything is still okay.

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     you haven’t heard from him or anything? i would think he would tell you if he was going home

 _na jaemin_  
    i just said i don’t know

 _lee donghyuck_ _  
_     well trig is in 30 min… i’m fucked

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     ok jaemin???? jisung did he seem ok this morning

 _park jisung_ _  
_     yeah he seemed fine

Jisung gives up on his guise of hiding his phone in his lap with Chenle not-so-stealthily peering down at the messages after their history teacher glares at the two of them with a look that says lunch detention all over it. He tucks it back into his pocket, leaning over to whisper to Chenle under the sound of her monotone lecture.

“I might run home and check on Mark, see if he’s there,” Jisung murmurs, hand already on his backpack like he’s ready to get up in the middle of a debriefing on the Ottoman Empire.

“You sure skipping class is a good idea?” Chenle says, physically unable to take his voice down to the level of a proper whisper. “I mean, your parents will probably kill you after last time.”

“Well, if Mark hyung is skipping class, too, I’m almost sure he won’t be telling Mom about me,” Jisung says, raising his eyebrow like he thinks he knows it all.

 _park jisung_  
    going home to check on mr. mark lee after this class  
    i’ll keep you all updated  
    chenle can you take my geometry notes for me

 _zhong chenle_ _  
_     i’m sitting right next to you idk why you had to text that but ok

 _lee donghyuck_ _  
_     jisung i’ll drive you home if you want?

 _park jisung_  
    nah dont worry  
    i can walk its not too cold

 _lee donghyuck_ _  
_     then freeze.

 _huang renjun_  
    mark if ur reading this tell jisung to stop texting in class  
    …  
    damn he’s really gone yeah jisung you better go find him

 _park jisung_ _  
_     i’ll tell you guys when i get home

Jisung power-walks through the cold, as he had totally underestimated how great a warm, ten-minute car ride would feel in comparison to a thirty minute walk in below-freezing weather. He can almost hear his mom nagging at him in his head, telling him to put on a real coat instead of that thin leather jacket, put his hood up instead of pulling that beanie down over his ears. But he was too worried about the _aesthetic_ , about looking _punk enough_ , and despite Mark’s many assurances that he can just be himself in high school, he still finds that he puts on a front to seem… cooler. And with being cooler, it seems at this very moment, he has to be colder.

When he finally comes walking down the street to their family’s home, he can see Mark’s old SUV parked in the driveway and feels a little bit of relief rush through his body. He pulls his jacket tighter around him as he powers through the last block of sidewalk, already full of questions for his brother.

He jiggles the doorknob, finding it locked even though he knows Mark is on the other side. He curses quietly to himself, digging his spare key out of his backpack as his fingers start to go numb from the cold. He turns the key, pushing his way inside, and he can hear Mark scrambling to sit up on the couch in case it turns out to be one of their parents coming through the door. He wipes at his eyes frantically just before making eye contact with Jisung and desperately pretending like he wasn’t just crying.

“Mark, what are you--”

“Don’t,” Mark says, grabbing his glasses from where they sit on the coffee table and shoving them onto his face so that he can see. “Just don’t, okay, go back to school. Jesus.”

“God, are you okay? Why did you go--” Jisung says, but Mark is already on his feet and bounding up the stairs two at a time towards their shared bedroom. “Mark, come on, talk to me.”

Mark gets inside the room and slams the door harder than he ever would just to make a point. Jisung patters up the stairs behind him, reaching for the door to find that Mark locked this one from the inside as well. He knocks on it rather harshly, hearing Mark stifle a sob from inside, but getting no answer. He takes out his phone, sitting down on the hallway carpet, and opens the group message.

 _park jisung_ _  
_     found him

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     home?

 _park jisung_ _  
_     yeah

 _lee jeno_  
    jisung your lack of punctuation is confusing me  
    is he okay???

 _park jisung_  
    he locked himself in our room and won’t come out  
    also he’s crying a lot  
    dont know whats wrong  
    can a couple of you guys come over

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     jaem and i have to take a test but we’ll be over right after that

 _lee donghyuck_ _  
_     i’ll take anyone who wants to go at lunch

 _zhong chenle_ _  
_     me please

 _lee jeno_ _  
_     me too thanks

 _zhong chenle_ _  
_     heh

 _park jisung_ _  
_     front door’s unlocked when you get here

When Donghyuck pulls up outside of the Park-Lees’ house, Jisung comes out of the front door almost immediately. He takes them into the garage, already having hatched a plan after waiting outside Mark’s door for the sound of muffled cries to stop or at least slow down. Somehow, the idea of climbing a ladder to Mark and Jisung’s second story window became more and more appealing as time continued on, but Jisung goes back inside to talk to Mark through the door before anyone gets on the ladder for what he calls ‘liability reasons.’

“If you come out, we can get something to eat and talk about it. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m not going to be mad at you for it.” Jisung says, lobbing hopeless attempts at the locked door. “I know you haven’t had anything to eat all day, and I’m sure you’re dehydrated. I’m just worried about you. Mom’s gonna kill me if you die in there.”

“I’m not going up the ladder,” Donghyuck says, staring at where it stretches up the side of the house to the window. “I can’t. I have a medical condition that makes me unable to climb ladders. Also, Mark likes me the least, so he would probably just push me down.”

“I guess I’ll go,” Jeno says, putting his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. Just as he steps towards the second rung, his first foot slips and lands him flat on the ground.

Chenle groans quietly to himself as Jeno looks up at him with an apologetic smile. He taps the side of the ladder, waiting for Donghyuck to hold it steady before he begins to climb.

“Mark Lee, this better be serious,” Chenle mumbles to himself as he grips the ladder rungs, pretending not to be as concerned of falling as he really is. He wonders if this is how Romeo felt when he climbed up onto Juliet’s balcony, and then he wonders if he’s remembering that right, or if Romeo was lucky enough to stay on the ground.

“Do you see him?” Donghyuck loud-whispers as Chenle’s head peeks into the window for the first time. He nods, looking at Mark curled up on his bed with his knees pulled into his chest. He thinks to himself, _God, why did this have to be me?_ Mark looks helpless, glasses pushed up onto the top of his head and his face tucked into the space between his knees. Chenle raises his hand, considers it all for a moment, and knocks on the window a bit harder than he intended.

Mark shoots upright at the sound, eyes darting to the window to see Chenle’s eyes and nose barely looking over the bottom edge of the frame. He looks profoundly confused for a moment, like one of his friends might be hovering magically outside of his window. Then he finds himself breaking into a bit of a smile, seeing the ends of Chenle’s hair dyed light brown sticking up in the wind and the red tint on his nose and cheeks from the cold. He’s smiling, even on a ladder in the cold, and he waves at Mark like there’s nothing wrong at all in the world and he’s just stopping by for a friendly visit to his window.

Chenle gestures wildly for Mark to open the window between them, and he cautiously approaches the window before opening it just slightly, enough that Chenle can hear him.

“Why are you here?” Mark says, wiping at his nose with the back of his sleeve. “You should be in school.”

“Okay, _mom_ ,” Chenle says, tilting his head up to get his mouth closer to the crack in the window, “You should be in school too. We’re worried about you.”

“I guess he didn’t tell you,” Mark says, trailing off the end his sentence and backing up from the window a bit.

“Hey, can you come back to the window?” Chenle says. “Sorry, I know you’re upset, I just can’t really hear you.”

“Why don’t you come up another step?” Mark says, gesturing down to the ladder. Chenle mimes considering for a moment, and then steps up a rung on the ladder. He stands up straight, his torso now replacing where his face used to be.

“IS THIS BETTER?” he calls down to Mark, and he can’t hear the response, but he climbs back down anyways to see the last moment of a laugh on Mark’s face.

“Okay, but just, stay quiet,” Mark says as he cracks the window a bit more, “I don’t want everyone to be able to hear everything we say. It’s… a lot.”

Chenle waves his hand behind his back to the boys at the bottom of the ladder, pointing them towards the house. Donghyuck nods, and moves inside, and Jeno follows, but not without accidentally running into the bottom of the ladder and nearly knocking Chenle off. He clutches to the window frame as the other two steady the ladder again, smiling at Mark and hoping that the absolute terror doesn’t show on his face.

“What happened?” Chenle says, standing on his tiptoes to put his chin on the windowsill. Mark sighs, pulling up the chair from Jisung’s desk so that he can sit closer to the window.

“Jaemin broke up with me. Like, two hours ago. With no warning.” He says, focus his gaze off into the distance instead of looking at Chenle.

“Oh my God,” Chenle says, brow furrowed in confusion. “What did he--”

“I just-- we try to keep you guys out of our problems, you know? Like, you don’t deserve to be stuck in the middle of this,” Mark says. “I was hoping maybe I just wouldn’t tell you right away and it would all work itself out and you wouldn’t see me like. Like this.”

Chenle can hear Mark start to cry again, and he sticks his hand flat through the gap in the window, reaching out for him silently. Mark doesn’t see him, instead covers his face with his hands and shakes his head at Chenle.

Jisung and the others are all huddled around the locked door, trying their best to hear what’s being said. They hear Chenle say, “Mark. Mark,” as if he’s about to cry himself, and then a moment of silence.

“Will you open the window?” Chenle says, after a while of sitting and watching Mark sniffle behind his own hands. “I just really want to hug you and I can’t when I’m out here.”

Mark looks up at him with his eyes bloodshot and gleaming, trying to blink away the tears that are hanging in the corners of his eyes. He thinks for a second, then nods, pushing up the window with a loud squeak. Chenle considers the logistics of climbing through the window, then climbs up a rung on the ladder before climbing in headfirst. He pushes himself through with his arms, and Mark just watches, stunned but slightly amused as he catches himself on the floor with his arms and then pulls his legs through with no problem.

“You could’ve helped,” Chenle mutters, but he’s already standing up and moving to wrap his arms around Mark, who instinctively hugs back immediately.

“You should’ve told us,” Chenle says as he rubs one of his hands in circles on Mark’s back, “we could’ve been there for you.” Mark nods into Chenle’s shoulder, starting to cry again, but breathing like he’s doing it best to hold it back.

Donghyuck pulls out his phone, opening the group chat and begins to type. Jeno looks over his shoulder, panics, and knocks the phone out of his hand.

“What is wrong with you?” Donghyuck whispers, scrambling to get his phone back. “I’m gonna give Na Jaemin a piece of my mind.”

“Don’t do it in the group chat with Mark!” Jeno says, hitting Donghyuck on the shoulder. “He doesn’t need to see that. Make a different one.”

 _lee donghyuck_ made a new group with _na jaemin_ and 4 others

 _lee donghyuck_ _  
_     what the fuck did you do to him jaem

 _na jaemin_  
    jesus christ  
    can we talk about this later, i’m in bio and i need to pay attention

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     okay well i’m ALSO in bio but id like to know what the fuck is going on right now please

Mark takes a deep breath in, moving his head to place his chin on Chenle’s shoulder. He gives Chenle a final squeeze and says “Ok, Lele, you can let go.”

Chenle squishes Mark in his arms a bit harder, showing no interest in letting go of him. He puts his face into the crook of Mark’s neck and holds him closer.

“I don’t want to.”

Mark sighs and hugs him back again, taking in the warmth.

“I just think,” Chenle says, breathing out hard and starting his sentence over. “I just think you deserve a lot better than what you’re going through right now. But it’s gonna be okay, eventually, even if things might not being going the way you want them to. I’ll do what I have to, what ever I have to, to make sure that you’re alright again.”

Mark hugs Chenle hard around his waist, letting more tears go even after he was sure that he was absolutely spent. Chenle moves his hand to Mark’s hair, pushes through it gently while he just keeps crying, wondering what they’re thinking on the other side of the door.

 _na jaemin_  
    can we just say right now that none of you can talk to mark about this  
    i didn’t have time to tell him myself this morning  
    but i will

 _lee jeno_ _  
_     okay but what are you even talking about

 _na jaemin_ _  
_     there’s… another guy

 _park jisung_ _  
_     na jaemin you better fucking explain yourself right now

 _na jaemin_  
    whoa hey wait  
    not while we were dating  
    like not officially

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     what do you mean by not officially

 _na jaemin_  
    can we meet after school  
    and give me a chance to actually explain

 _park jisung_ _  
_     you better have a good fucking story

Chenle is thinking about when he was 12. It’s not something he likes to think about often for fear of remembering something he did in his preteen genius years. But he can’t help but think about it now, think about when his neighbor Jaemin made friends with the new kid in his class and told Chenle about how great he was.

When Mark and Jisung moved into town, Jaemin begged his parents to invite them over every night for two weeks before they finally gave Mark’s mother a call. Chenle remembers hanging out in the yard behind Jaemin’s house and meeting two boys, one his age and one Jaemin’s.

“This is Mark, and this is Jisung,” Jaemin said, before asserting the fact that Mark was to be his new best friend and Jisung was to be Chenle’s. Jisung was quiet, but Chenle could make him laugh enough that he opened up after a while.

“Can we go hang out with Jaemin and your brother?” Chenle asked, looking at them through the sliding glass door into the kitchen. “He seems really cool.”

“He is pretty cool,” Jisung says, getting up to head toward the door, “and I think he would think you’re funny. Come on.”

Chenle swore that was the day that Jaemin made Mark his best friend. They were all friends, the four of them, but no matter what happened, Jaemin and Mark seemed absolutely inseparable.

“Hey,” Mark says from where he sits. Chenle has his legs on either side of Mark’s, letting him lay back against his chest. He can feel Mark breathing against his chest, and it snaps him out of his thoughts.

“Mhmm,” Chenle says, not sure if Mark had said something to him before. Mark sits up a little bit, shifting so that he can look at Chenle.

“Did Jaem… say anything to you? Like, about this?” Mark says, and Chenle starts to reply, but Mark cuts him off with more. “I mean, if he would tell anyone, it would be you. I’d think. You’ve been around us since the beginning.”

“Hey,” Chenle says, furrowing his eyebrows. “No, he didn’t, but… we don’t have to talk about this. I don’t want you to get upset again.”

“I kind of can’t think of anything else,” Mark sighs, folding his legs over each other.

Chenle begins to search the inner workings of his brain for the best way to do all he can do at the moment: make Mark laugh. It’s the only way he can think to get his mind off of Jaemin, even for a while.

“What would you do if I told you,” Chenle says, “that Jeno was going to climb up the ladder to check on you, but he fell off of the bottom step and landed right on his ass?” Mark responds with a half-chuckle, imagining it for a moment and then nodding his head at the absolute believability of it all.

“Or,” Chenle says, “what would you do if I told you that right after that, my brain really wanted me to say ‘HE NEED SOME MILK’ but I thought it was too serious of a situation?”

Mark lets out a real guffaw this time, letting his head fall down into his chest as he shakes his head, disappointed and amused.

“It was like, I saw the world go black and white, and I saw the big ‘WASTED’ sign from GTA, and I was really trying my best not to laugh for the sake of making sure you were okay, but God, it was so hard.”

Mark laughs, pushing Chenle’s shoulder back with his hand. There’s a knock at the door, and they both freeze, their friends outside the door almost completely gone from their minds.

“Hey,” Jisung says, pausing for an answer and then continuing on anyway. “School just got out… should I tell Renjun and Jaemin to come over?”

“No!” Mark says, almost immediately, and Chenle scrambles to get up to the door only to hear the panic that ensues just outside.

“You IDIOT, we aren’t inviting Jaemin over! Are you insane? You’re insane!” Donghyuck says, trying his best not to yell but doing a poor job.

“We’re not supposed to know!” Jisung says, followed by the thumping sound of someone hitting someone else on the head, but Chenle can’t tell who did what. “I was going to let him tell us himself!”

“Just. Invite Renjun over.” Chenle says through the door, pinching the bridge of his nose. The others continue to bicker through the door as Chenle walks back to the bed, sitting down next to Mark this time. Mark puts his head on Chenle’s shoulder, and Chenle feels his heart drop into his stomach, but he quietly puts his head on top of Mark’s for a second instead of saying anything.

“Hey. It’s me again, Mark. Your brother. I don’t know if you remember me,” Jisung says, “but our mom is going to be home in like… maybe twenty minutes. And I love you, but if we’re all just sitting out here in the hallway waiting for you guys, she might get a little concerned. It’s your call.”

“Can you just,” Mark says to Chenle with a sigh, “tell them to go home? Or like, somewhere else. For a while.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Chenle says, shrugging Mark off his shoulder so he can go back to the door. He clears his voice, and yells louder than he might need to, “EVERYONE GO HOME. Also Jisung, you could just hang out at Jeno’s for a while or something. Just don’t stay here and wait around for us.”

The three of them look at each other, shrugging at the idea and decide to retreat from the door.

 _park jisung_  
    can we meet somewhere?  
    all of us

 _na jaemin_ _  
_     please

 _huang renjun_ _  
_     we can go to the park?

 _lee donghyuck_  
    that’s fine.  
    we’ll meet you guys there in a few minutes

“Mark, I’ve got a dumb idea,” Chenle says when he’s sure he can’t hear the boys anymore.

“All your ideas are dumb,” Mark says, but he still watches Chenle as he takes out his phone and sends a message to the group.

 _zhong chenle_  
    jisung  
    tell your mom mark came to my house after school  
    and he’s gonna stay the night at my house tonight

 _park jisung_ _  
_     ok? don’t kidnap my brother please

Chenle wanders over to the open window nonchalantly, peering down at the ladder that goes all the way down to the ground.

“You up for an adventure?” Chenle says, cocking his head towards the window.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

But somehow, Mark ends up stepping out of his bedroom window, just after unlocking the door for Jisung later, and he can hear Chenle saying something down on the ground as he holds the ladder steady.

“It’s like we’re escaping from prison!” He calls up, watching as Mark makes sure to land both feet on each step before going down again.

“Why couldn’t we escape through the door?” Mark calls back down, hearing Chenle laugh at the way his voice shakes a bit. He somehow makes his way down after a few moments of uneasily stepping down and accepting that he may die at any second. He steps down where Chenle holds both sides of the ladder, standing between his arms until Chenle says _oh_ and backs away.

“Well,” Chenle says, “now that those losers are gone”--Mark snorts--“we can go get ice cream without them trying to convince me to pay for them all.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Mark says, but when Chenle makes his way to Mark’s car in the driveway, he can’t seem to say no.

“What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?” Chenle says, propping his feet up on the dashboard of Mark’s car. Mark raises his eyebrows, and Chenle puts his feet back down with a smile of feigned innocence.

“I like cookies and cream,” Mark says, “what about you?”

“Chocolate,” Chenle says, “all chocolate. All the time.”

“I honestly don’t think you need any more sugar,” Mark says, “but we’re still gonna go because you said you’re gonna pay.”

“I NEVER SAID--” Chenle says, but he’s cut off by Mark’s laughter as they pull into the parking lot.

Chenle puts his finger up to Mark as he puts the car in park, opening his door quickly and jogging around the front of the car to open Mark’s door with great theatrics. He gestures for Mark to step out of the car and shuts the door lightly behind him as he walks towards the ice cream shop.

Mark orders for both of them, handing Chenle his ice cream cone, but Chenle rushes to pay at the counter before Mark gets a chance.

“I said I would,” Chenle says, and when Mark goes to protest, he just smiles and takes his receipt.

They talk about Jisung nearly getting detention in history that morning, and Mark laughs and nods, like he’s saving the information for later.

“When we were younger, I would charge Jisung $5 to keep secrets,” Mark says with a laugh. “Like if he wanted me to keep something from our parents, he would just show up at my door with a $5 bill and I would take it and swear not to tell a soul.”

“That’s evil,” Chenle says, “I should start doing that to him too.”

“Yeah,” Mark laughs, “like, it really sustained me as a kid. I don’t even know where he got the money from, but he always had it ready to go the second he did something wrong. We had a whole system.”

“What about when you had a secret?” Chenle says, catching a bit of dripping ice cream with his mouth just before it lands on his hand. “Like, did it go both ways?”

“No, no, never. I had older brother privilege. If he told Mom, I had a hundred dollars worth of secrets to spill.”

“Oh my GOD, that’s evil,” Chenle chuckles, and neither one of them looks to see if the patrons mind how loud they’ve gotten.

“I think it would be cool to be a stand-up comedian,” Chenle says a while later, after their ice cream cones have been nibbled down into miniature versions of their original selves and the two of them are left with sticky fingers. “You know, like, make people laugh for the rest of my life.”

“You would be good at that!” Mark says. Chenle beams back at him, even though he doesn’t consider it a dream and more of an alternate-universe version of himself. “You always make me laugh. If anything, I would show up to all of your shows and laugh, even if no one else did.”

“Are you saying that no one else would? That’s rude,” Chenle says, crossing his arms and pretending to be upset. Mark laughs at his words, but Chenle’s attention drifts over Mark’s shoulder and out the window.

Jaemin is standing across the street, looking at his phone aimlessly with his back pressed against the glass of a storefront. Something that Chenle can’t hear catches Jaemin’s attention, and he looks up from his phone with a bright smile.

Like the window is a movie screen, Chenle watches a tall boy come into frame and put his arm around Jaemin. Jaemin puts his hand on the boy’s chest for a second and feels steam rising out of his ears.

“You alright?” Mark nods to the change in Chenle’s demeanor. Chenle sputters for a moment, wanting nothing more than to keep Mark from looking outside and seeing Jaemin with someone else. He nods, considers his options, then nods again, and stands up quickly , brain already hatching a plan.

“What’s your favorite candy?” Chenle says, looking back towards the wall opposite window. “They have candy back there, we can get some.”

“I mean,” Mark says, “we just had ice cream. We don’t really need candy, do we?”

“I thought we’d have a movie night tonight! We have to have candy for a movie night, right?” Chenle says, taking Mark’s hand and tugging him towards the back wall. Mark follows behind, slightly confused. He watches Chenle glance again and again behind them out of the corner of his eye, and he follows his gaze to the window to see Jaemin, back pressed to the window of the opposite store, all to close to a guy that Mark doesn’t think he’s ever seen before.

“Fuck, Chenle,” he says, turning to walk towards the door. “Jaemin’s right out there, I need to go talk to him.”

Chenle’s grip tightens on Mark’s hand from where he never let go, pausing him from his pursuit only two steps in.

“Mark, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.” They watch as the taller boy puts his arm around Jaemin’s shoulder and leads him into the store, the door swinging shut behind them. Chenle feels Mark’s body relax through his grip on his hand, and then turn back towards him.

“No, you’re right,” Mark says, pulling his hand away from Chenle’s grip. “I’ve messed up his life enough, I shouldn’t do any more damage for whatever he’s got going for him now.”

“Hey,” Chenle says, knitting his eyebrows together. “Hey, hey. No. Mark, no, God. Listen.”

Mark looks up at him, not quite listening all the way, still conscious of Jaemin being so nearby.

“You don’t… you haven’t ruined anyone’s life. The moment you came into Jaemin’s life, all of us started to become friends, and I mean all of us. Think about how miserable we would be if we didn’t have each other to rely on,” he says, stopping to take a breath. “You’re, like, one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Ever. You are kind and smart and funny and uplifting and handsome and way cooler than me and having you in my life has been absolutely wonderful. Anyone would be lucky to be able to date you. You don’t ruin lives, you make them better.”

Mark blinks back at him, eyes shiny as he takes in a breath and his chest lifts. Before he gets the chance to open his mouth, Chenle has more to say.

“I’m lucky to be your friend. Anyone would be lucky to be your friend. You’re a good friend.” Chenle says, trying to put the dots together in his mind. He’s afraid that he said too much, that he sounds like maybe he _wants_ to date Mark, that maybe he wishes that Jaemin had taken better care of him when he had the chance. He stops his mouth from going any further, cutting himself off with an affirmative nod of his head.

“Lele, can we go home?” Mark says, voice quiet in comparison to everything that just spilled out of Chenle’s mouth.

“Yeah, of course we can,” Chenle says, shaking himself back into the moment. He moves towards the door, turning around to make sure Mark is following him. “But I get to pick which movie we watch first.”

Mark’s shoulders move with a silent laugh, letting the smallest of smiles curve the edges of his lips up. Chenle nods, and pushes open the door to the ice cream shop. The bell at the top of the door frame chimes, Mark is closer to smiling, and that’s enough for Chenle right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey this is pretty neat! it's my first big project in a long time and i know chenmark is a huge rarepair but i love them so much and i have to get this out into the world
> 
> please comment and tell me what you think! i'd really like to continue this story to the end but i really want your opinions on the story/characters/if it's worth finishing!!! 
> 
> also! this is the first part of four, so make sure to bookmark if you like the and want to follow its progress!
> 
> catch me on social media  
> twt: @hesmarklee  
> tumblr: izwon  
> curiouscat: nctdad  
> and thanks for reading!
> 
> p.s. shoutout to both my beta readers bc neither one of you know that i had a second beta reader oops ur both the best <3


	2. two

Five boys sit squished on a picnic table in far too cold weather for a picnic, all eyes fixed on Jaemin. He was the first one there, sitting idly until the others showed up and added weight to the silence.

Jisung purposefully took the seat farthest away from Jaemin when he sat down, and the other boys filled in the space between them. Jaemin can see the building tension behind the cool mask of his ex-boyfriend’s younger brother, the way his foot taps on the ground to keep him from blowing his top. 

Renjun smiles at Jaemin, trying his best to convey “ _ we don’t hate you _ ” without having to say it out loud. Jeno sits next to Renjun, Donghyuck sits down directly across from him. They sit with their gazes all trained on Jaemin, waiting for him to speak. Donghyuck breaks the silence first, turning to the boy.

“Alright, explain.” 

Jaemin panics for a moment, because he had a whole explanation crafted in his head right up until this second, where he seems to have forgotten anything he wanted to say. He takes a deep breath, ready to perform the same speech he gave himself on the way to the park. He nods and jumps directly into the deep end.

“Listen. I know you all think I’m the bad guy here,” Jaemin says, shifting forward to lean against the picnic table, “but this is goes a whole lot deeper than you know.”

Jeno’s eyebrow picks up in question and Jisung’s shoulders bob in a silent scoff.

“Mark and I have been fighting. A lot, for months now, really.” Jaemin breathes deeply to keep his emotions from bubbling up, and he nods an assurance to himself again before he continues. “He didn’t want you guys to know about it, he always said he didn’t want to  _ break up the group _ or  _ stir up drama  _ or anything so we would just quietly figure it out ourselves but it really sucked not having anyone to talk to about it, you know? Like, keeping my feelings in like that isn’t healthy! It’s not!

“If I couldn’t tell you guys, I couldn’t tell anyone, so I just tried to talk to other friends. They weren’t even really friends, they were just some guys I knew and so I started hanging out with them to get away from dealing with Mark. And they started telling me that all this wasn’t good for me and, you know, they’re right. It isn’t good for me and you can’t deny that.”

The stunned silence of the boys around him only spurred Jaemin further. He felt like there was so much that they didn’t know, and he had to explain himself properly or else they would never understand.

“So this morning, something happened inside of me, and I just knew that this was it. I had to break up with Mark, I couldn’t wait to do it anymore when it was in all of my thoughts and so I did. And no, I probably didn’t do it in the most graceful way possible but he had to have known it was coming after all of this, right? I mean, it was just the buildup of everything that we’ve fought about, which is  _ everything _ , and something inside me just wouldn’t let me wait anymore.”

“But,” Renjun says, knocking Jaemin out his own mind for a moment, “that kind of doesn’t explain the fact that you’re seeing someone else? Like, were you cheating on him?”

“No, God,” Jaemin says, taking in a deep breath. “I wasn’t cheating-- here, just let me keep going and I’ll explain. There’s a lot.”

Jisung shifts in his seat as he contemplates between staring Jaemin down as he listens or looking absolutely anywhere else at all. He settles to look at Jaemin, to give him a chance, but he can feel his ears grow red in anger as Jaemin begins to talk again.

“So, after I did it, I sent a message in the group chat-- not ours, the other one I was talking about with Xuxi and Jungwoo. And you know, I said ‘guys, I did it.’ And then I said, ‘oh my God, what do I now?’ and they just kind of calmed me down because it was really difficult for me and they really made me feel better when I felt like I couldn’t talk to any of you about it.

“And then Xuxi was like, he said it was great news because now he could finally ask me out on a date. For a second I was really confused but then my brain was like, huh, I guess I really do want to go out with him. I just never considered it because I was too focused on Mark. So I said yes, and I know it seems kind of fast, I know, but I don’t really feel like dwelling on that part of my life for any longer than I have to. So, we’re going on a date tonight. And I don’t feel bad about it. I’m done feeling bad.”

He takes in a deep breath, like his speech knocked the wind out of him, and he watches as the gears turn in the brains of all of his friends. He wonders if he has more explaining to do, if there’s anything else to say, but he’s suddenly bombarded with questions.

“Who’s Xuxi?” says Donghyuck.

“You’re in another group chat?” says Jeno.

“Is this why you haven’t been hanging out with us?” says Renjun.

“Why were you and Mark fighting?” Jisung asks, pushing his question to the front of Jaemin’s mind.

“God, because of everything,” Jaemin says. “I think we just used up all of our happiness together and we started getting annoyed and then we ran away from each other, which only made it worse. We fought every day, or at least that’s what it felt like.” 

“Okay, but who’s Xuxi? Who are these guys?” Donghyuck asks again, pressing harder this time. Jaemin sighs, but puts his hands flat on the table to steady himself before he continues.

“Do you know Wong Yukhei?” Jaemin asks, “he’s like, on the football team. I met him through Jungwoo, he’s in student gov with me. They’re really nice, you guys would totally get along with them. I mean, maybe not right now, but you would if you already knew them.”

“Well. Okay.” Renjun looks a bit bewildered at the prospect of Jaemin dating the football player that you could pick out in a room based on sound alone, but he doesn’t feel very interested into knowing the details any further. “Are you… when are you going to tell Mark any of this?”

“He really deserves to know,” Donghyuck speaks up, putting himself a bit closer to Jaemin. “He told us-- well, he told Chenle that he didn’t know why you did it. That you just ran away with no explanation.”

Jaemin nods to himself, and he knows that he shouldn’t have left Mark without an explanation, but that same voice in his head from before tells him that there’s nothing he could do to remedy the situation. 

“I was kind of hoping that you could… relay all this back to him,” Jaemin says, looking particularly at Jeno, who seems to be the least upset with him. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for me to talk to Mark for a while. I’m sure you get that.”

“Could we meet up this weekend or something?” Jeno says, sitting up straighter from where he was slouched on the table. “Like, to make a plan or something, try and get things back to normal.”

“Oh… I already have plans this weekend,” Jaemin says, clenching his teeth in apology like he just accidentally hit Jeno. “Sorry, we just already planned to hang out and I can’t back out like that.”

“You have plans for the entire weekend?” Jeno says, looking up at Jaemin as he stands up and climbs over the bench seat. 

“Yeah. I’m really sorry,” he says, picking his backpack up from where it fell over into the dirt. “I have to go get ready, I told Xuxi we would go out after school, I was just going to be a little late. I’ll see you guys around.”

Jaemin sends them a small smile before turning around, not waiting for any of them to bid him goodbye. Jisung pulls his phone out, silently stewing in his own thoughts before texting Chenle.

_ park jisung _ __   
         so   
         how’s everything going?

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          we’re getting ice cream, so pretty good overall

Jisung doesn’t check his phone again until he’s home, after everyone else had gone home. He’s sitting on his bed, knees curled towards his chest with his headphones in when he feels his phone vibrate in his hand.

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          MAYDAY

Something about that message concerns Jisung, but Chenle’s general ability to dramatize everything he does makes it seem pretty minor.

_ park jisung _ _   
_          ???

_ zhong chenle _ __   
         we saw j*emin out in public with a MAN   
         we’re going back to my house for a movie night   
         operation keep starboy from crying is a go

_ park jisung _ _   
_          is starboy supposed to be mark

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          yeah i like codenames

_ park jisung _ _   
_          then why did you censor jaemins name instead of giving him a codename too

_ zhong chenle  _ _   
_          he’s codename CLOWN

_ park jisung _ _   
_          oh my god no okay no more codenames

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          dw he would think it was funny

_ park jisung _ _   
_          real names only from now on

Mark is curled up on Chenle’s couch when he returns from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn roughly the size of his own head. He’s wearing a pair of pajama pants that Chenle had given him for “maximum movie night comfort” and he’s cleaning the lenses of his glasses with the edge of his t-shirt. He looks up and immediately reaches for the bowl, dragging it into his lap and shoving a handful into his mouth as Chenle reaches for the remote. 

“You sure your parents aren’t going to mind if I stay the night here?” Mark asks, putting his feet on the edge of the coffee table. 

“Oh, they’re not home,” Chenle says casually, but then he wiggles his fingers at Mark as if the idea of being alone might scare him. “We’re gonna be in this big whole house all by ourselves.”

“Oh no, Chenle!” Mark says, holding the back of his hand to his forehead. “What if there’s an intruder? An evil group of robbers that want to kill us?”

“No need to fear, darling Mark,” he says, putting his hands on his hips like a superhero. “Captain Chenle will protect you!”

Mark laughs, nudging him with his shoulder. Chenle turns to the TV, regretting that he caved and let Mark choose the first movie instead, because they’re currently looking at the title screen for some horror movie that Chenle’s never even heard of. Mark sits up a bit in excitement as Chenle presses the play button, concerned that he might die before the final credits. 

It’s the worst kind of horror movie, Chenle thinks, the slasher fics where you have to watch a dozen people die in horrific ways for the sake of entertainment. One of his arms is growing numb as Mark barely leans against him, and he tries hard to keep himself from jumping every time something scary happens.

The only way he can keep himself from screaming at every jumpscare that comes on screen is to shut his eyes as tightly as possible every time he thinks something  _ might  _ happen. His ability to sense this has gotten better with practice, but he still finds himself with his eyes shut for at least half of any scary movie he can bring himself to watch. 

He has his eyes scrunched tight as he hears a disposable character scream for help, waiting for the chaos to die down before he opens his eyes again. When he finally cracks them open again, the guy on screen is very, very dead, and he’s much less scared of dead people than about-to-be-dead people. He looks over at Mark to see if he’s getting any sort of enjoyment out of the awful movie choice he made, only to find Mark smiling at him instead of looking at the screen.

Chenle nearly jumps out of his seat, with tensions already high with the movie playing, and Mark can’t help but crack up into a laugh as Chenle puts a hand on his chest to still his heart. 

“Did you get scared?” Mark says, and Chenle sputters to answer him. “You had your eyes closed. We can turn it off if you want?”

“I, uh-- no, I, I wasn’t scared! I wasn’t scared at all, I was just…” Chenle thinks for a second, trying to pick out a good reason he would have his eyes closed. “sleeping! I fell asleep for a minute there. You know, long day.” His heart is still pounding, maybe because he was scared, or maybe because of the way Mark smiled when Chenle turned to look at him. 

“Okay, sure,” Mark says, leaning back against the couch. He holds his arms out towards Chenle, who panics internally and probably a little bit externally as well. He furrows his brow at Mark, who only gestures for Chenle to come closer. 

“If you’re going to fall asleep, you might as well be comfortable,” Mark says, waiting for Chenle to slowly and uncertainly lean against his chest. “And if you were really scared, which I know you’re  _ definitely _ not, but if you were… then I could hold you and keep you safe.”

Chenle feels his heart speed up even more, but he eases himself into Mark’s arms because he’s not really sure how he would say no, or if he would want to say no at all. Mark’s arms reach all the way around Chenle, folding his hands together on top of Chenle’s stomach.

Chenle feels like he’s wrapped in a blanket, warm with Mark’s chest against his back. It’s comfortable, and it feels a bit like he could fall asleep for real there. He can feel the rise and fall of Mark’s breathing, and suddenly Chenle feels like he’s being faced with a dilemma. 

Chenle is thinking about when he was 14. He remembers Jaemin telling him that he got a boyfriend, and Chenle’s first response was  _ dude, I want one of those, too.  _ Chenle knows that he was thinking about the boy Jaemin’s been hanging out with a lot more lately, the one with black hair and wire-rimmed glasses that always smiled brightly at him. 

Now, Chenle is 16 going on 17 and he can feel his pulse in his temples and Mark’s breath in his hair, and he knows exactly what it all means. But he knows, even if everything is falling into place in his mind, that he can’t say a word. 

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, then does the only logical thing that someone can do in that situation: he runs to hide away in the bathroom, leaving Mark confused and a little bit colder.

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          help

_ park jisung _ __   
         is mark okay?   
         should i come over?

_ zhong chenle _ __   
         no no no listen    
         he’s fine   
         IM not

_ park jisung _ __   
         what does that mean   
         are you dying

_ zhong chenle _   
         listen stop asking dumb questions

_ park jisung _ _   
_          …

Chenle heaves a large breath, like he’s about to tell a long-winded story, and starts typing.

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          i have a crush on your brother and i probably have for a long time and i know that now is not a good time to put all this out there but i gotta say something to someone before i accidentally say something to him

_ park jisung _ _   
_          god youre so stupid chenle

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          i KNOW thats why im hiding out in the bathroom

He’s almost sure that he can hear Jisung sighing, very loudly, and very disappointed, from his own house. 

_ park jisung _ _   
_          can you just like. put this away for now and worry about it later

_ zhong chenle _ _   
_          I CAN TRY BUT IT HASNT BEEN WORKING SO FAR

_ park jisung _ _   
_          you idiot

Chenle nods to himself, fully agreeing with everything Jisung is saying. He’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub, elbows rested on his knees, just trying to figure out what to do next. 

_ park jisung _ _   
_          are you still hiding in the bathroom

_ zhong chenle _ __   
         …   
         yeah

_ park jisung _ _   
_          get back out there before mark thinks youre dead!

Chenle cracks the door to the bathroom and pads down the hallway, trying not to make much noise as he walks back into the living room. Mark is sitting with his legs criss-crossed, blinking slowly as he finds himself getting sleepier despite the fact that it’s only approaching nine o’clock. He must hear Chenle walking up behind him, because he turns around with a concerned look on his face.

“You alright?” Mark says, rubbing at one of his eyes with the palm of his hand. His glasses are now folded up and sitting on the coffee table, and his eyes squint a little bit where he strains to see.

“Yeah, no, yeah. Sorry, I got kind of scared. I’m okay now.” Chenle walks back towards the couch, picking at the last bits of popcorn that sit in the discarded bowl. 

“You could’ve told me,” Mark says with a pout, “We could’ve just turned it off. I didn’t mean for you to get scared.”

“It’s okay, really,” Chenle says, fighting back the thoughts that swim through his head when Mark juts out his bottom lip. 

“Well, c’mere then,” Mark says, scooting back against the far end of the couch and holding his arms out again, this time with less vigor. “We’ve gotta finish the movie.”

“Are you gonna stay up through the end of it?” Chenle asks as he fits himself between Mark’s outstretched legs and pushes back against his chest. Mark hums back at him, implying a yes, but Chenle already knows it’s not true. 

It only takes ten minutes before Chenle’s sure that Mark is fast asleep behind him, judging by the steadiness of his breathing and the way he’s stopped jumping at the scariest bits of the movie. He lets his head fall back near Mark’s shoulder, looking away from a particularly gruesome scene on the TV.

He closes his eyes to keep himself from getting scared, but when he does, he can feel the warmth all around him and he can feel Mark’s heartbeat thump, and he thinks that might be even scarier. He forces his eyes back open, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what cruel gods put him in this situation, and if those gods have any idea how they’re making him feel. He lays like that, counting Mark’s exhales until he drifts off into a light sleep of his own, tangled up with Mark on the couch and waiting for the credits to roll. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for being patient !!! 2 out of 4 are done uwu i hope you all enjoy


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